A Federal Court judge has thrown out the federal government's deportation case against Syrian-born Hassan Almrei, a man that CSIS accused of connections to the "Bin Laden network."

Hassan Almrei was detained in 2001 on a national security certificate and held until this year. Now a federal court judge has ruled a security certificate reissued in February, 2008 is not valid and there is no longer reasonable grounds to believe he poses a threat.

OTTAWA – A Federal Court judge has thrown out the federal government's deportation case against Syrian-born Hassan Almrei, a man that CSIS accused of connections to the "Bin Laden network."

In a 185-page landmark ruling, Justice Richard Mosley found the evidence, both secret and public, cited to justify deporting Almrei does not hold up to scrutiny, and declared "unreasonable" the deportation certificate that deemed him a threat to national security.

Almrei, who was first arrested more than seven years ago but was released earlier this year under strict conditions, got the news in his lawyer's Toronto office.

"I'm glad. I cannot describe how happy I am," he said Monday from his lawyer's office.

"At the same time, I'm sad it took me more than eight years."

"He's very excited and so am I," said Almrei's lawyer Lorne Waldman, in a telephone interview from Montreal, where he was setting to board a plane en route to meet with Almrei.

"After seven years, this man is now cleared. The story here is how does this decision reflect on CSIS's understanding of these organizations."

The tight conditions currently governing Almrei's release have not formally yet been lifted, said Waldman, but the court's decision will mean he will soon have his freedom.

"The court is satisfied that Almrei is not and was not a member of an organization that there are reasonable grounds to believe has engaged in terrorism," wrote Mosley.

Mosley, a former assistant deputy justice minister appointed to the Federal Court bench in 2003, said he recognized that there were "reasonable grounds to believe that Hassan Almrei was a danger to the security of Canada when he was detained in 2001 but finds that there are no longer reasonable grounds to believe that he is a security risk today."

Mosley was critical of Canadian Security Intelligence Service and the federal public safety and immigration ministers who signed a new certificate in 2008 against Almrei, after the Supreme Court of Canada had forced the government to overhaul its law to provide more protection in cases where secret evidence was cited.

Mosley said the CSIS and the ministers "breached their duties of utmost good faith and candour to the court by not thoroughly reviewing the information in their possession, prior to the issuance of the February 2008 certificate."

The judge said the government's case against Almrei "was assembled with information that could only be construed as unfavourable to Almrei without any serious attempt to include information to the contrary, or to update their assessment."

CSIS was forced to admit earlier this year, as it did in a separate deportation certificate case, that it failed to disclose evidence that a confidential informant was "deceptive" when answering questions in the Almrei matter. A second source cited in the government's case against Hassan Almrei was not subjected to a lie-detector test, contrary to what the agency had claimed in court documents.

One of the federal ministers involved, Public Safety Minister Peter Van Loan, issued a written statement Monday, saying the Conservative government "inherited the Security Certificate system for managing terrorist threats from the previous Liberal government."

The Conservatives re-wrote the regime, and re-issued those certificates affected by the Supreme Court ruling. One was used to deport a suspected Russian spy who did not challenge Ottawa's case.

Van Loan hastened to say "no new security certificates have been issued by our Government as long-term control instruments."

Yet the public safety minister acknowledged a succession of adverse court rulings has prompted a sweeping review of how the certificates operate.

"An increasingly complex legal environment, and the significant costs associated with outstanding certificates, are factors in the current review we are undertaking of this system."

Van Loan noted there have been successful terrorism prosecutions under the Conservatives.

"The threat of terrorism is very real. Canada has disrupted terrorist plots, and has successively tried and convicted terrorists. And that work continues. We must continue to remain vigilant. Our objective is to ensure Canadians are safe from terrorist threats."

Certificates, though rarely used, allow the government to rely on evidence that is secret, and the standard of proof in the deportation case is lower than in a criminal case.

Waldman said while there is no doubt that in Almrei's case the court-assigned special advocate lawyers who were able to hear and challenge the secret evidence — without communicating it to Almrei or Waldman — "played an extremely important role," he said it "is not the complete solution" to the problems presented when the government uses secret evidence.

The ruling throws further doubt on the federal government's regime for trying to deport foreign nationals it deems a national security threat. An earlier court threw out a certificate against Adil Charkaoui, after CSIS withdrew evidence it feared would jeopardize its human sources.

Mosley wrote today: "In arriving at this conclusion, I am taking into consideration that Hassan Almrei lied and engaged in criminal activities prior to and following his entry to Canada. He maintained contacts with other Afghan Arab veterans, associated with persons who were believed to be Islamic extremists and made contact with others who were involved in human smuggling and the false document trade. He was prepared to assist others in obtaining those services and himself procured a false passport and other travel documents."

But Mosley also said "the Hassan Almrei of 2001 is not the same person that I heard and observed in the courtroom."

"As he acknowledged in his testimony, he has been changed by the experience, by the people who have befriended and supported him in the years in which he was in custody and through the reading he has done on a broad range of subjects. One constant in his life over the course of the past eight years has been his religious devotion. I do not believe that he will now proceed to violate the principles of his faith."

"I am also persuaded by the evidence that if he is the person that the Ministers believe him to be, it is unlikely that after such a prolonged period of detention that he could re-enter the life that he had and reactivate his contacts in the false document trade. Given the notoriety that he has acquired, that would be foolhardy for him and for anyone inclined to do business with him."

He said that CSIS, in their most recent assessment of Almrei, "considers that the risk that he poses a threat to the security of Canada, if released without conditions, was reduced as a result of a number of factors. They had no new information to indicate that he was engaged in threat-related activities, his original network of contacts has been disrupted and his high public profile and lack of anonymity would render him less effective."

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